Worcester '74 cold case still draws searchers

Anne Lawson might be one of the last people to have heard from Vicke Lee Lamberton. It is an unsettling thought for Ms. Lawson.

Shortly before Mrs. Lamberton, 24, vanished in February 1974, she called at least two people: her estranged husband, Lowell Lamberton, and Ms. Lawson. Neither one heard from her again.

Ms. Lawson remembers hearing from her friend sometime before the disappearance. “She called me one day and said she was going to Colorado with friends, and I never heard anything after that,” Ms. Lawson said in a telephone interview.

That was it. No more phone calls, dinners or visits. Ms. Lawson was contacted a couple of years later by Mrs. Lamberton’s brother, Robert Lockwood, who was wondering if Ms. Lawson had heard from his sister.

“I thought it was strange that she never called me,” Ms. Lawson said.

The disappearance of Mrs. Lamberton continues to be a passion for Worcester Police Detective Daniel F. Sullivan, a member of the department’s Unresolved Homicide Unit, who had been trying to find Ms. Lawson. He had been hoping she could help investigators glean more information about the disappearance. Police have classified Mrs. Lamberton as a missing person.

Ms. Lawson, who lives in Florida now, is coming to Worcester in the summer. A trip around the city with Detective Sullivan is planned.

“I asked her to come back,” Detective Sullivan said. “It was almost like talking to another investigator. She tried to pick my brain.”

Ms. Lawson still doesn’t believe she’ll hear from Mrs. Lamberton.

“The odds that I’d hear from her at this point would be pretty slim unless I ran into her down here,” said Ms. Lawson, who lives in Rotonda West, Fla. “Unfortunately I don’t have good feelings about what happened to her.”

Now 70, Ms. Lawson recently reached out to Detective Sullivan when she learned a couple of months ago that he was looking for her. A friend emailed her a July 2012 Telegram & Gazette story about Mrs. Lamberton and how police were searching for the missing woman. The detective hoped Ms. Lawson might have more information that could help lead to Mrs. Lamberton.

Detective Sullivan spoke to Ms. Lawson recently. The conversation helped reaffirm some of his theories, which he said he had to hold close to the vest because the investigation is still active.

Family of Mrs. Lamberton said she was possibly having an affair with an Assumption College professor and might have gone to Colorado with him. During their investigation detectives talked to that professor. He said he doesn’t recall going to Colorado with Mrs. Lamberton.

Mrs. Lamberton’s family, in an earlier interview with the Telegram & Gazette, said the Assumption College professor had some of Mrs. Lamberton’s items at one point.

In his interview with Ms. Lawson, Detective Sullivan learned Mrs. Lamberton was an acquaintance of another area college professor while she lived in Worcester. The detective also talked to that man, who now lives in California, but he said he didn’t know Mrs. Lamberton was missing.

Ms. Lawson and Mrs. Lamberton lived on the same floor — the ground floor — at 74 Beaver St. and became friends. They would chat in the corridor, have dinner together and talk almost every day. Mrs. Lamberton eventually moved out of the building. Ms. Lawson couldn’t recall how long it had been — but the two kept in touch almost weekly.

There were some marital problems, Ms. Lawson said, and Mrs. Lamberton talked about men she was interested in. Ms. Lawson thought Mrs. Lamberton might have taken off with another man, but believed her friend would have kept in touch with her.

“She never said anything about just wanting to disappear,” Ms. Lawson said.

When found at his home last year in Oregon, Mr. Lamberton said he believed his former wife was still alive. She had talked about going to a place where nobody knew her. Ms. Lawson said she never talked to Mr. Lamberton about Mrs. Lamberton; she thought such a conversation would be awkward.

Ms. Lawson said she can’t believe her friend vanished without keeping in touch with anyone close to her.

“I think she needed people in her life that she knew,” Ms. Lawson said.

Mr. Lockwood was vigilant in trying to locate his sister. He continued his search up until his death a few years ago. Mr. Lockwood once lived with Mrs. Lamberton and her husband in Worcester.

It was Mr. Lockwood who alerted Ms. Lawson to the circumstances surrounding Mrs. Lamberton’s disappearance.

Ms. Lawson still ponders the fate of her friend.

“It was the kind of thing you hope someone would find out what happened,” she said.

Anyone with information on this case may send an anonymous text to 274637 beginning with TIPWPD, or submit an anonymous message online via www.worcesterma.gov/police; or call the Worcester Police Department Detective Bureau at (508) 799-8651.

Missing person and unresolved homicide cases in Worcester can be viewed at www.worcesterma.gov/police/investigative/unresolved-incidents.